History
Although authorized in 1946, it was not until 1947 that the first Army of Occupation Medals were distributed. The first medal was presented to General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower who had been the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Commander during World War II.
Because of the legal status of West Berlin, as an occupied territory until the unification of Germany, the Army of Occupation Medal was issued for forty five years making it one of the longest active military awards of both the Second World War and the Cold War.
In addition, some recipients of the award were born two generations after the end of the conflict which the medal was designed to represent. Much like the National Defense Service Medal, the Army of Occupation Medal has come to be considered a "multi-generational" award.
Read more about this topic: Army Of Occupation Medal
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Spain is an overflow of sombreness ... a strong and threatening tide of history meets you at the frontier.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)